•The NHL will announce today the terms of its new TV deal, again with Versus/NBC. It's upwards of $200 million a year, easily the league's largest contract. ESPN was reportedly involved in bidding until the last moment, and a number of execs in the league would have preferred the exposure of ESPN, but let's be honest: Versus needs hockey to survive, and hockey needs Versus to actually devote time to it.

•Last night in not-not-hockey: Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit. The first three series are 2-1, so they'll be heading back to the higher seeds' arenas. Not the Coyotes, though. Down 3-0, after Wednesday their next game might be in Winnipeg.

•Tim Lincecum went 6 and ⅓ no-hit innings, and tied Christy Mathewson for most double-digit strikeout games as a Giant. What we're saying is, if the NL West is its usual crapshoot, and comes down to a one-game playoff, we like San Francisco's chances.

•Via College Baseball Daily, that photo above is Mississippi State outfield Brent Brownlee saluting the Arkansas crowd after catching the final out of Sunday's game. He'll be suspended for tonight's game against Ole Miss, which we can only assume is a rivalry game.

•David Matthews, a good man himself, opines for the Good Men Project on the dearth of, let's say, intelligent sportswriting out there. I think the short answer is this: while the Internet has multiplied the number of opportunities out there, stupid people have always outnumbered smarts, and that doesn't change online. Not only in the writers themselves, but in the audience, the ones advertisers care about. Lowest common denominator, or at least blandly inoffensive and predictable, will always sell.